Take a picture it will last longer...

So back in the summer of 2009 an online friend of mine started this challenge; taking a picture every day for a year. Just a random picture of their day. I loved it. Loved looking at his pictures and seeing his world. Another friend picked it up and I loved looking at hers as well. So I thought, Why not? And decided that my birthday would be a great place to start. So August 20, 2009 I posted this:

And that started POD, (picture of the day). It turned out to be a good year for it. It was C's senior year so I captured a lot of the milestones, the lasts and some firsts. It was a fun challenge. Some days were easy to decided what to take and some were really hard. But it made me think about my world and what I wanted to share with people, and what I didn't. After the year was over I stopped. Because that's what you do when a challenge is over, you stop. Though out of the three of us that first started it I was the only one to make it the full first year.

Then I realized I was missing it so I started again on October 1, 2010.  I liked the 10/1/10 start date. And I did another year. This time documenting a year without C. Our first year as empty nesters. And as it turned out I also ended up trying to figure out what pictures to take on a trip home for my father's funeral. POD isn't always something happy. And then that year ended and I took my last POD shot on 9/30/11.

Slight change over the course of two years. My hair was long enough to harvest in the middle. I finally found a skin treatment that worked (not without other side effects but those got under control after I stopped taking the skin pills thank goodness) and I zoomed a little tighter. But it was a nice neat wrap up for POD. I was done with that. And then...

Well then friends of mine in Australia started posting these themed POD shots from Fat Mum Slim. I thought it was very cool. I had missed a few days so almost didn't do them but then decided to just play catch up and do them anyway. So January 2012 started a new challenge with daily photographs. Get a theme, find something to fit.  This was a different sort of thing to think about. Some of them were easy, a time of day, what you had for breakfast, some were not so much, sometimes it was an emotion or a prompt that didn't work easily. Trying finding Sunshine in February in Portland. But it was fun.

I did it for a year.  Starting with January 1, 2012

The prompt was You. Pretty basic. And dang my hair grows fast! Then ended it a year later with December 31, 2012 the prompt being Self Portrait.

You can tell I was a little more creative in my interpretation of the prompts by then. And as I had picked it up from friends other friends picked it up from me so again I got to see everyone else's pictures and not only that but also their interpretation of the same prompt. 

And then I stopped again. This was three years of taking pictures every day, surely that was enough.

Then I took this seminar on happiness  and decided that POD made me happy. So I started again. March 1, 2013 L is for...

Lazy...

And I've been doing it every day since then. So add another year plus to the tally. Now we are up to just over 4 years of picture of the day starting and stopping. A few months off here and there. And I've reached the end. Again. 

The prompts aren't much of a challenge, actually wait, that's not really true. the prompts can be really challenging, but often they aren't much of an inspiration. I like to try and tell a story with the shot. Because, you know, storyteller...

Anyway, sometimes there isn't one to tell. Or not one that is really interesting anyway. I almost stopped last month. But then I found I was taking the pictures and just not posting them so I thought, well, obviously I'm not done yet...but as the month went on and I realized that I didn't have much creative to add I knew it was time to hang it up. I've covered a lot. C's last year of high school and all four years of college including graduation and getting his first job. The loss of my father and of George (like I said, not always happy) a few trips to Disney, a few to New Mexico one to Hawaii, friends visiting and visiting with friends. And I've had the chance to share all of that with other friends. I've gone from hauling my camera around with me everywhere to having a camera on my phone that's probably better than my old camera was! It's been a good run and now I'm done. Again.

Let's see how long it lasts this time.

July 31, 2014 Rise 

and fall.....of POD.

And one more bonus shot for the blog...